Local comfort dogs travel to Arizona to help families of fire victims

Share Update:

Local comfort dogs travel to Arizona to help families of fire victims

A local group of therapy dogs and their handlers are traveling to Prescott, Arizona today to help the relatives of the nineteen firefighters who were killed Sunday.

Lutheran Church Charities’ K-9 comfort dogs were invited to help them and members of the Prescott community. Four of them flew out of O’Hare Aiport this morning and will meet up with other comfort dogs in Arizona.

The golden retrievers are specially trained to work with people of all ages during tragedies. The dogs have traveled to other recent tragedies, including the Boston Marathon bombings and the Newtown, Connecticut school shootings.

“The dogs have a wonderful ability to help people. They have a sixth sense of empathy and so they know when somebody is hurting,” said Tim Hetzner of the K-9 Comfort Dog Team. “Fulfillment is helping people through whatever their loss is, or their crisis is, to help them heal.”